Versailles, 15 May 1778. printed: JA, Diary and Autobiography description begins Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. description ends , 4:100–101. This letter and its supporting enclosure, a copy of a letter from La Tuilliere, consul at Madeira, to Sartine dated 15 Feb., were translated by Adams in his Autobiography (for the French texts see Lb/JA/6, Microfilms, Reel No. 94). Vergennes protested the illegal seizure of “a French Snow or Brigantine ... in Sight of the City of Madeira,” by the privateer Lion, Capt. Benjamin Warren (“John” Warren in the letter and enclosure, but see Allen, Mass. Privateers description begins Gardner Weld Allen, Massachusetts Privateers of the Revolution (Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, vol. 77), Boston, 1927. description ends , p. 206), and called for the punishment that Warren deserved.

On 19 May, in a letter to the president of the congress, the Commissioners referred the protest to that body’s deliberation and, in another letter of the same date, informed Vergennes of their action (both in Diary and Autobiography description begins Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. description ends , 4:103). No record of the ultimate disposition of this matter has been found.